California's new biological research program is available online

A new report examines the current needs and challenges of organic farmers and ranchers across California. Photo of organic strawberries by Joji Muramoto

Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF) has released the new California Organic Research Agenda (CORA), a comprehensive report that examines the current needs and challenges of organic farmers and ranchers across California and provides policy and recommendations research to solve the problems identified by the producers. .

The CORA report accompanies the national biological research program 2022 of the OFRF. National Biological Survey data contains responses from more than 1,100 growers and 16 listening sessions held across the United States. Using the California subset of the national survey data, the CORA report highlights key production and non-production challenges cited by California organic farmers and ranchers. “Organic agriculture has always been underinvested, in terms of research, education and extension,” says OFRF Executive Director Brise Tencer. “The new California Organic Research Agenda and National Organic Research Agenda 2022 feature incredible input directly from organic farmers and provide a compelling roadmap on how best to support the growth of this important sector of agriculture. The report's findings indicate that managing production costs is a significant challenge for 71% of growers surveyed, and access to labor emerged as the top non-production challenge. An overwhelming number of state growers (76%) expressed a substantial need for technical assistance for organic weed, pest and disease management. As well as detailing farmers' challenges on and off the field, OFRF's CORA report provides a comparative analysis of farmer responses based on commodities and farming experience. National and state comparisons are also included in the report. Production of the CORA report was supported in part by the University of California Institute of Organic Agriculture, a new statewide program within the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources of UC, as well as the UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology. "One of our main activities is to generate new research and extension programs focused on organic agriculture," says Houston Wilson, director of the UC Organic Agriculture Institute. "The CORA report provides an excellent roadmap to guide and prioritize our efforts, we are really excited to turn this information into action." According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, farmers and ranchers in the state were responsible for 40% of all sales of organic agricultural products in the country. Data from a 2019 USDA organic survey concludes that California has 965,257 acres in organic production, or about 17.5% of the entire organic acreage in the country. OFRF's California Organic Research Program examines the needs of growers in the nation's largest producer of organic agricultural products and specialty crops, paving the way for future research and investment.

“This report will benefit organic growers in California by serving as a critical reference to increase public support and develop research projects targeting the specific needs faced by various organic growers in the state,” says Joji Muramoto, UC Cooperative Extension organic production specialist based at UC Santa Cruz. The CORA report is freely available online at https://ofrf.org/research/nora for farmers, policymakers, agricultural suppliers, seed companies and the general public.